2014 was a significant year for employment law. After a period of a couple of years with very few policy updates, we began to see where the Department for Employment and Learning were going with their review of employment law in Northern Ireland.

Probably the biggest employment law topics of 2014 that you may have seen in the media, were as follows:-

-          Zero hours contracts and exclusivity clauses in them

-          Holiday pay (overtime and commission payments should now be included in calculation)

-          Shared parental leave

-          Extension of the pool of people eligible to request flexible working

In April 2015, shared parental leave and the extension of flexible working rights will come to Northern Ireland. In relation to flexible working, currently an employer needs to show that he or she has caring responsibilities in order to be eligible to request flexible working. From April this year, all employees with 26 weeks’ service will be eligible to request flexible working (provided that they have not made a prior request within the previous 12 months).

Shared parental leave will allow parents of babies born after April 2015 to decide how to split their time off during the first year of the child’s life.  An employee taking Shared Parental Leave can split their leave into up to 3 separate blocks instead of taking it all in one go, even if they aren’t sharing the leave with their partner. If both parents are taking leave then they can take their leave at the same time as each other or at different times. An employee must give their employer at least 8 weeks’ notice before a block of leave begins. If the employer agrees, the employee can split a block of leave into shorter periods of at least a week. For example they could work every other week during a 12-week block, using a total of 6 weeks of their shared parental leave. An employer can’t turn down a request for a block of leave if the employee is eligible and gives the right notice. The employer doesn’t have to agree to the employee breaking the block of leave into shorter periods.

In relation to zero hours contracts and the impact of the ruling on holiday pay, there may be further developments. The government may issue regulations prohibiting exclusivity clauses in zero hours contracts to prevent an employer from prohibiting individuals working elsewhere, without any guarantee of receiving a minimum number of hours’ work each week.

By way of brief reminder, the rulings on the calculation of holiday pay found that an employee’s holiday pay should reflect their actual remuneration, including overtime and commission payment, and not just their basic salary. There was some anxiety among employer representatives that there could be a huge number of claims for back-dated holiday pay. The government has set up a task-force to investigate the potential impact of these cases and its report can be expected at some point in 2015.

Other than the issues addressed above, the right to take unpaid parental leave (distinct from the shared parental leave referred to above), will be available to parents up to the child’s 18th birthday. In addition, there will likely be the usual increases in National Minimum Wage and the statutory cap on a week’s pay for the purposes of calculating statutory redundancy entitlements and basic award in unfair dismissal cases.

I look forward to keeping you up to date with developments as the year progresses.

Collective Questions is intended as a guide and for general information only and is not a substitute for taking specific advice relating to your situation. For specific advice regarding this or any other issue relating to employing people, please do not hesitate to contact us.